Amid the growing demoralisation of monasteries, Benedict of Aniane, whose original name was Witïza, when a boy, was cup-bearer in the Court of Pepin, and continued with Charlemagne. In returning from Rome in 774, in the retinue of that king, he narrowly escaped drowning in attempting to save his brother. This turned his thoughts towards joining a monastery, which he soon entered, and at once excelled in all the austerities. He macerated his body by excessive fasting, clothed himself with rags, which soon swarmed with vermin, slept little and on the bare ground, never bathed, courted derision and insult like a madman, and expressed his fear of hell in loud outcries. On the death of his abbot Benedict became his successor, and built a little hermitage on the bank of the river Aniane. Some monks tried to live with him, but found the regimen too severe; others succeeded better. He and his monks resolved to build a monastery between them. They had no oxen to drag the materials, and they did the work themselves. The walls were of wood, the roof thatched with straw, the vestments were coarse, the vessels of wood, but all of their own making. They lived chiefly on bread and water, sometimes a little milk, and on Sundays a scanty allowance of wine. Yet it was noticed that they soon tended to greater luxury and splendour, for in 782 the wooden monastery was replaced by one more solid--marble and decorations and costly vessels. Charlemagne himself contributed, and exempted the building from all taxes; and he appointed Benedict and two others to collect and recast the rules of monasteries and nunneries. Benedict to the last helped to plough and dig and reap, and died in 821, aged seventy. IMPROVEMENTS IN MONASTICISM (A.D. 780). When Benedict, Abbot of Aniane, in Languedoc, born in 750, left the Court in early life, disgusted with its ways and bent on monastic labours, thought of founding a new monastery, he found the system then in vogue far too lax. He taught his monks to accustom themselves to earn a living by their own industry, and then do the utmost good with their earnings. When starving crowds came to his new settlement, he taught them to join in storing all the grain that could be spared till next harvest, and each made his portion support himself and supply a surplus, as a boon to the needy ones outside. The monastery was also turned into an industrial centre for library work. Louis the Pious thought so well of these improvements in discipline, that he drew up a code in 817 on the same principles, and circulated it throughout the Frankish Empire. Benedict used to say, "If it seem to you impossible to observe many of the commandments, then try only this one little commandment: 'Depart from evil and learn to do good.'" A MONK AT COURT WRITES HOME TO HIS OLD CONVENT (A.D. 750).